Behemoth

This movie is not as bad as it is made out to be. First off it is surprisingly well shot, and the scenery is beautiful. Secondly, this is a B movie. It didn't have a huge budget, and it shows. That's all right though; it is what it is, an old school monster movie. My main complaint is that not enough people got eaten by the monster. Some people have complained about the cgi. I've seen much worse animation, especially in older movies. The animation used was perfectly acceptable. This movie isn't the best nor is it the worst, though it definitely deserves better than the appalling 3.4 rating it has.

Its almost as if the producers just looked at a list of clichés and just picked the ones they like from it. Its all here. The pretty scientist, the handsome local to serve as a foil to create a sexual tension, the young college age couple, the old man who knows what is happening but everyone thinks is crazy, the skeptical sheriff, the mysterious, cryptic government agent along with all the usual stuff about how mankind is causing the earth and environment to fight back against all the horrible things manking has done to it. This time its in the form of a creature who supposedly has the power to destroy all life on earth as we know it. To me it just looks like a poor mans Kraken from Clash of the Titans. Don't't waste your time.

No surprises here and fun if you play the "Cliché Game": Watch the movie and try to count the clichés. 1 point for standard cliché, 5 points for ridiculous. I lost count after about 500 points.

This is pretty much standard made-for-TV movie fare. With the predictable moments fighting it out with the ridiculous moments for top prize.

One of my favorite "what the BLEEP" moments was when the Sheriff finally decides to believe the "experts" and evacuate the town all he says to the townsfolk is, "Grab your stuff and get out of town!" Since the town is so small, "out of town" is about 200 yards away. Not a lot of help...

The actors do their best with a horrible script but, as another reviewer stated, the women for the most part stand there screaming, "What's happening!!" over and over. There is a character named Zoe that you really want to slap repeatedly after 2 or 3 scenes...

Watch this for an excellent lesson on how to make a really bad movie!

I just watched the movie on a Sunday evening and i am satisfied with it. Because it was exactly what i had expected and what it was made for. A nice entertaining time killer when you have nothing better to do at Sunday evening.

The acting was plausible and realistic to enjoy the movie and the cgi effects where also like expected. They would have looked cheap in a high budget movie of course, but for such a SciFi channel movie good enough. The monster itself was very well animated.

I reed a few comments about how that feminists may not like the movie because the female characters did nothing else then scream and being helpless. Well, that is just what the most women do in emergency situations. They do not pull out two guns and save the world, like it is very popular in lots of movies at the moment. They mostly scream, do not know what to do and hope that the men saves the situation. So from that point of view the movie was much more realistic then the most comparable movies ;).

As I have said, many times, I do dislike intensely a vast majority of SyFy's output save a few exceptions, though I do watch them to see if there are some at least decent films among the sea of crud. Behemoth is not down there with SyFy's worst, not with Quantum Apocalypse, Alien vs. Hunter, Dinocroc vs. Supergator, Moby Dick: 2010 and Titanic II.

What does salvage the movie from being bottom-of-the-barrel quality like the aforementioned titles are the surprisingly good CGI effects, when I finally saw the monster fully I was surprised at how good it looked compared to other effects I've seen on the channel. Also William B. Davis while not outstanding gives a noteworthy performance.

Everything else didn't engage sadly. The settings were okay, but the haphazard editing and rather dim lighting prevented me from properly enjoying. The story is rather plodding, very predictable and by-the-numbers, with any thrills, suspense and tension feeling somewhat tame and only the ending properly exciting.

The script is banal and as plodding as the story. The beginning especially is full of overlong and sometimes meaningless exposition. The direction is often unfocused too, the sound is lacking in clarity even in crucial scenes and the music to me was forgettable at best.

The characters are lifeless, clichéd and none of the characters emotionally resonated with me in any way. This is not just the script and expositions, but the dull acting also plays a major factor in this. Davis as far as I was concerned was the only one who tried, everyone looked bored and were phoning in.

Overall, SyFy has done worse but I don't recommend Behemoth. 3/10 Bethany Cox